Amid the ongoing political turmoil, symbolized by the recent violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, books and articles abound today to encourage us to re-read anti-totalitarian classics ‘for our times’. But what do we find in this body of work originally written in response to Nazism and Stalinism? Do we find a democratic consensus forged by a shared anti-totalitarian commitment? I doubt it. Considering the cases of Isaiah Berlin and Hannah Arendt, this article highlights discord beneath what may today appear like a (...) post-war democratic consensus. I argue that the anti-totalitarian literature of the last century encompassed multiple political philosophies, which sometimes differed irreconcilably from each other. (shrink)

Este trabalho tem por primeiro objetivo examinar os fundamentos das críticas de Hannah Arendt à democracia representativa. Para tanto, será preciso retomar os aspectos centrais de suas análises da democracia grega, incluindo suas invectivas contra a tradição da Filosofia Política que teria obscurecido seu sentido autêntico. Em segundo lugar, o artigo tenta demonstrar que as reservas de Arendt a respeito da democracia representativa não conduz, em absoluto, a sua completa rejeição.